Character Mentor: Assignment 1

Character Mentor: Assignment 1

Introduction 

Over the Easter holidays I decided to catch up on some reading and keep practicing my animation and drawing. I was recommended this book by our visual narrative tutor: Les called ‘Character Mentor’ by Tom Bancroft. This book is focuses on how to give a character through their poses and acting. He goes on to explain that book assumes you already have designed a character, and this is supposed to guide you on how to present that character. One way to describe this book is that it focuses on the principles of solid drawing and staging. 

It has great tips and pointers and I feel that it has really helped me. There are also assignments for the reader as well as examples from other people who have tried the same assignment. Moreover these entries have feedback from Tom Bancroft which have also been improved. Therefore I decided to try these assignments myself to improve my own work. 

Assignment

Assignment 1 involved creating a character from the description given and pose them in such a way which reflects his personality. You can see the description in the image below:

 

This is my design of ‘Elroy’ and ‘Kirby’ from the description.

 

I felt that the word ‘inseparable’ stood out to me and I wanted to pose them in such a way that reflects this. Because I felt that Elroy is lonely in his new school as he has no friends, but Kirby is always there for him even though he may eat his clothes.

I tried to add depth by turning Elroy as well as adding weight to his clothes by having him lean forward and for the necklace to hang and show this. As I sketched Elroy I felt that I had to enlarge his: head, hands and feet to make him appear younger because he is only 15 years old. I have always found it a challenge to reflect youth but I feel that I have had a good attempt with this assignment. 

Conclusion

This is why I particularly like these assignments because they challenge you to try and do something different which you wouldn’t normally do. I would improve this design by: spending more time on the hamster design because I felt that I rushed him because I was focused on Elroy. I feel that the face of Elroy may appear too old or fat because I feel that his face may not be part of his body (if that makes sense). I’d revisit the hat because to make the hat ‘unique’ I wanted a hat inspired by Fivel’s the mouse in ‘An American Tale’. However I had already drawn the hat and finished the design before I thought of this. I would also spend more time on the tiki mask necklace design.

I will revisit this assignment in the future amending the improvements given to myself and see if I have improved. I will also continue by completing the other assignments within the book in the near future.